This review surveys and synthesizes the findings of 87 focal pieces, published primarily since 2009 and mid 2018, on the formal and informal use of social media—blogs, wikis, and social networking—for second and foreign language teaching and learning (L2TL), including studies on the use of educational sites like Livemocha and Busuu and vernacular sites like Facebook and Twitter. The article frames the review in the development of social media and the history of social computer-assisted language learning (CALL) research. Synthesis identifies common findings, including that social media can afford the development of intercultural, sociopragmatic, and audience awareness, language learner and user identities, and particular literacies. Presentation of the focal pieces and common findings is intertwined with discussion of problematic issues, and each section concludes with a summary and implications for future research and practice.

Writing has generally been perceived as a solitary activity, completed by the writer working alone. Yet, over the years we have witnessed a growing interest among researchers and educators in Collaborative Writing, an activity that can be simply defined as the involvement of two or more writers in the production of a single text. This interest has been driven by two main factors. The first factor is the nature of workplace writing. Studies (e.g. Ede & Lunsford 1990; Mirel & Spilka 2002) have shown that in a number of workplaces, writing is often completed in teams rather than individually. The second factor is the advent of Web 2.0 applications such as blogs, wikis, and Google Docs, which have transformed literacy practices, making the creation and sharing of texts easier and more readily acceptable (Hyland 2016; Vandergriff 2016). In the field of second language (L2) learning, interest in collaborative writing was also spurred by early research conducted by Swain and her colleagues (e.g. Swain & Lapkin 1995; Swain 1998; see also timeline for additional references) showing the language learning opportunities of communicative tasks which involve joint written output (e.g. Dictogloss).

Those who have advocated social approaches to applied linguistics have often been critical of the individualism of second language acquisition (SLA) research. This paper identifies the emergence of a more balanced view of the social and individual in recent work. Adopting Berger's (1972) metaphor of ‘ways of seeing’, it offers a history of applied linguistics based on three eras: the era of ‘the invisible learner’, the era of ‘learner-centredness’, and the era of ‘person-centredness’, which we may now be entering. It suggests dominant research methodologies have led to the particular ways of seeing language learners that are characteristic of each of the three eras. In spite of the critique of individualism, the preference for individual case studies in social approaches is leading to a new theoretical focus on the individual that may be best captured by the term ‘person-centredness’.

Multilingualism is widespread in the world today and English is, in many cases, one of the languages in the multilingual speaker's repertoire. English as a lingua franca (ELF) is used by multilingual speakers who can also communicate in other languages and use their multilingual and multicultural resources in creative ways. This paper aims at exploring the relationship between recent trends in multilingualism, particularly the proposal ‘Focus on Multilingualism’ and ELF. After a brief presentation of multilingualism as related to globalization and super-diversity, there will be an examination of the new trends that bring together the study of multilingualism in education and ELF. Then, similarities and differences between the two are discussed as related to the emerging paradigm that takes into consideration a new vision of language, speakers and repertoires and has translanguaging as a key concept. Translanguaging pedagogies based on the multilingual learner's repertoire are also discussed. The last section looks at achievements and challenges presented by the synergies that have been created and reinforced.

This position paper builds on three of our earlier publications on the same subject (Jenkins & Leung 2014; Leung, Lewkowicz & Jenkins 2016; Jenkins & Leung 2017), as well as a number of conference papers we have given both jointly and individually. However, what we have not done up to this point is to propose alternatives to the large-scale standardized English tests administered by the major international examination boards, of which we have been so critical, despite the fact that we have been discussing other possibilities among ourselves for several years. The opportunity to publish a position paper on English language assessment therefore provided an ideal opportunity to present our alternatives, and this we do in the final part of the paper.

This article is concerned with age in second language learning. It steers well clear, however, of the well-worn issue of maturational constraints and the intractable problems of locating their consensual offset point and finding indisputable evidence for or against them. Instead we propose something completely different in our agenda for age-related research: a programme on some poorly understood non-maturational dimensions of the age factor which will stand some chance of yielding results unlikely to become entangled in theoretical controversy. In other words, the results will, we think, be immediately usable and useful. The topics included in our outlined agenda are: (1) age effects in various dimensions of language teaching and learning (in relation to bilingualism and biliteracy, to different target languages and to Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL); (2) what can be observed in respect of second language (L2) learning in the third age; (3) an ecological perspective on age in classroom L2 research methodology; and (4) an exploration of the attitudes of teachers of different-aged L2 learners.

Recent development in L2 pragmatics research in a study abroad context has witnessed an emerging line of studies investigating the joint influences of contextual and individual learner factors on second language (L2) pragmatic development. This paper argues for the replication of two representative quantitative studies in this new research direction. Situated within the field's increasing emphasis on explaining the development of L2 pragmatic competence, the first part of this paper makes a case for the necessity of replicating quantitative studies investigating the study abroad context, highlighting why and how the field can benefit from replication research. The second part of this paper presents detailed accounts of the two focus studies and suggests several options for approximate and conceptual replications.